In 2006, we presented at DGON symposium in Stuttgart [2] the design and navigation results of MARINS, the first FOG-based navigation system within the class of 1 nautical mile per day. This navigation system in now in production and has been delivered to numerous navies.

Today we are challenged by even better performance and the question is: have we reached the limits of the technology or can we still improve the performance of our sensors? One nautical mile in a month means a bias stability of 2*10-5 degrees per hour! It may look foolish for a strapdown system with a dynamic range of at least 100 degrees per second. However, based on tests results, we provide evidence showing that FOG is the right technology to build a fully strapdown INS of this class. In particular we present:

• Noise improvement;
• Very long term pure inertial navigation (several weeks) of a FOG-based system with temperature controlled environment.

Of course, the present FOG design is not good enough for the required perform-ance, even in a strictly controlled environment. The first way to go about this is obviously to increase the geometry factor (and therefore sensitivity) by increasing both diameter and length of the fiber coils, but this will not be sufficient. It will be necessary to improve detection noise, to control more accurately the light source wavelength, to reduce temperature gradient … Clearly there are difficulties on the way to a FOG-based strapdown system able to navigate with an accuracy of 1 nautical mile over several weeks; however, we show that FOG technology has not reached its ultimate potential yet and that the dream of even higher performance is within reach.

The paper analyzes the methods to design tools for azimuth alignment of downhole gyroinclinometers in polar areas up to 80 deg N. The required accuracy may be achieved using FOG IMU-based gyro heading indicator or two-antenna satellite navigation system phase measurements. Test results for research prototypes of gyroinclinometer initial alignment system designed by Concern SCRI Elektropribor, JSC are presented.

The results of developing the electromechanical model of a R-R type MEMS Gyro are given. This model considers nonlinear effects and inequality of the drive and sense elements parameters. The reasons for the appearance of resonance peaks on the sub-multiple harmonics with the base vibration are investigated and requirements for the characteristics of the control system elements are defined.

Transfer alignment is the process of initializing the navigation sensors of tactical guided munitions launched from a platform. Through this method the misalignment between aligning and aligned body is estimated which facilitates navigation of aligning sys- tem during its post ejection course of flight. Measurements provided by navigation sensors of aligning system is noisy compared to that of the launch platform. Thus, excitation of the platform in the form of some deliber- ate manoeuvre is important in order to discriminate the signal from noise in the available measurement so that the misalignment can be effectively estimated. With advancement of technology, the prerequisites of accurate alignment have changed and with it the algorithms have also undergone continuous transformations. Extensive work has been done on this topic over the years. Here a detailed review of the evolution of transfer alignment problem has been presented. Emphasis is on statistical and algorithmic aspects of the problem rather than time line of work already done. This re-view provides a general guideline for new entrants to this field and should help practitioners with information regarding trends of research on this topic.

This paper proposes a new approach to localizing a designated building from for-ward-looking infrared images under complex scenes, which can be used in UAV guidance. The proposed approach makes full use of the scene information to localize buildings. Therefore, the proposed approach can localize small or occluded buildings under complex scenes. The experiment results show that the proposed approach can precisely localize the designated building from forward-looking infrared images under complex scenes.

The requirements applied to a stellar-inertial motion control systems (MCS) of the perspective astrophysical space vehicles (SVs) are considered. Features of SV, in-tended for the astrophysical observations carrying out, as control object are deter-mined. The chosen two-loop structure scheme of the precision MCS is presented. One of the possible variants of precision MCS algorithms for the astrophysical SVs is resulted. The requirements applied to the accuracy and dynamic characteristics of MCS measurement instrumentation and executive units are determined by mathematical simulation approach. The analysis of a state-of-the-art instrumentation which is included in the scientific SVs stellar-inertial complexes is carried out. Recommendations are developed for the choice of instrumentation structure from the point of view of the mass and power consumption characteristics minimization and the astrophysical SVs MCS working life increasing.

The feasibility of the method of local PSD approximations applied to robust filtering problems with bounded variances of signal derivatives is considered. An approximate approach to robust filter design is suggested. The filter adjustment is based on the assumption that the signal is formed as n-times integrated white noise. It is pointed out that the upper estimate of the root-mean-square filtering error in-creases by no more than 1% as compared with the exact solution of robust filtering problem. An example is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the solution pro-posed.

There is considered the main concept of creating airborne and ground-based stellar-inertial navigation systems, based on strapdown inertial navigation devices – stellar tracker, inertial navigation system and satellite navigation receiver. The requirements to optical and electronic components of inertial navigation system stellar tracker are formulated. The results of inertial navigation system model experimental processing both on ground and on the object are given. There are considered various astrocorrection versions of strapdown inertial navigation system implemented in stellar inertial navigation system

To date the development of theory and technology of mechanical gyroscopic and inertial systems is almost completed. Several outstanding Russian researchers and engineers with their teams greatly contributed to this process. The article analyzes the contribution of the leaders in Russian gyroscopy.